The Center for Public Integrity

Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera, in the midst of a rapid U.S. expansion, has hired another lobbying firm to represent itself before government officials, new Senate records indicate.

The Law Offices of George R. Salem, PLLC, is being tapped to provide "informational communications regarding client's cable television channel" to lawmakers and bureaucrats, the lobbying registration records state.

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera, which is planning a major expansion following its purchase of former Democratic Vice President Al Gore's Current TV cable network, hired DLA Piper, Global Policy Initiatives and TCK International to represent it on Capitol Hill.

Republican lobbyist Tom Korologos — most recently an ambassador to Belgium whose government service also includes stints working in Iraq — will handle the account for TCK International.

A pair of gun groups — one favoring firearms control, the other opposed to it — have registered new federal lobbyists, according to U.S. Senate filings made available this afternoon.

The registrations come at a time when Congress is considering a slate of bills further regulating guns, and President Barack Obama is making firearms control a central piece of his public agenda.

The Virginia-based National Association for Gun Rights registered Christopher Kuper, its director of federal legislation, as its first-ever federal lobbyist, filings show.

Documents list "firearm background checks," "assault weapon ban" and "magazine capacity limitations" as issues on which it intends to lobby.  

The association is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group that describes itself as "not a faceless D.C. based lobbying group" but  "an organized network of grassroots activists who are committed to defending the Second Amendment."

Meanwhile, the New York-based Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund added to its federal lobbying stable, tapping Maryland-based firm JBH Group to advocate on its behalf, Senate records show. 

Nearly $3 million and counting.

That's how much money outside interest groups have spent ahead of the Feb. 26 party primary for Illinois' 2nd District special congressional election.

The bulk of the funding — more than $2.5 million through Tuesday — has been spent by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun super PAC Independence USA PAC, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The organization is joined by four other political committees that have also bought ads that advocate for or against one of the three main Democratic candidates battling to fill the seat, vacated by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., who is facing federal felony charges.

Only about one in 10 House races attracted as much or more outside attention during the entire two-year 2012 election cycle.

The first congressional contest of the 2014 election cycle may be emblematic of a new norm in House races, where cash-flush super PACs and politically active nonprofit groups easily outspend candidates. And given the Illinois race and the GOP intra-party fights in 2012, spending won't be reserved for the general election, either.

In the Illinois 2nd District race, outside groups combined spent $2.7 million on independent expenditures through Tuesday, a figure that almost certainly will rise between now and next week's primary.

Nearly $2 million has gone to ads and other efforts opposing former Rep. Deborah Halvorson, a gun rights supporter, who faces former Cook County Chief Administrative Officer Robin Kelly and Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale.

Might lobbyists one day save the world from killer space rocks?

Don't count on it. But a few cosmos-minded special interests have spent tens of thousands of dollars in recent years prodding the federal government to better track potentially deadly near-earth asteroids, U.S. Senate records indicate.

Such activity — easily dismissed as the stuff of space nerds and doomsayers — could now accelerate, as a meteor explosion today over central Russia injured hundreds of people and has already reopened debate about government's role in predicting or averting an even greater calamity.

In 2008, the California Space Authority sent a lobbyist to Washington, D.C., in part to promote passage of HR 4917, a bill sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that would "establish an Office of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Object Preparedness" and "prepare the United States for readiness to avoid and to mitigate collisions with potentially hazardous near-Earth objects in collaboration with other agencies through the identification of situation-and-decision-analysis factors and the selection of procedures and systems."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., announced today he's retiring from the U.S. Senate, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's done fundraising.

Lautenberg's campaign committee, which has $182,000 to its name, owed the senator more than $1 million heading into 2013, according to its latest federal campaign finance filing.

The debt stems from money Lautenberg personally loaned his campaign committee during 2002 when he beat a better-funded Republican, Douglas Forrester.

Had Lautenberg sought another term, he would have likely faced popular Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker in a Democratic primary.

Early polls gave Booker a sizable lead, meaning the 89-year-old Lautenberg would need to crank his fundraising machine to its highest level ever — and potentially dump in more of his own cash — to have any chance at retaining his seat. That Lautenberg, even as an incumbent, is hurting for cash doesn't inspire confidence in his chances for re-election.

Consider that Lautenberg's neighbor in New York state, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, entered 2013 with more than $9.7 million in reserve and no debt.

Lautenberg could forgive the debt. Or the Lautenberg for Senate committee could continue collecting funds, which would be used to pay back its namesake candidate. Lautenberg's current term expires in January 2015, and he says he intends to serve until then.

The 2012 election, the most expensive on record, left the political action committees of many top lobbying firms hurting for cash, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records indicates.

The PAC sponsored by Patton Boggs, for example, the nation's biggest lobbying firm, ended the 2012 presidential election cycle with 20 percent less cash than it did after the 2008 presidential election cycle — nearly $146,000, versus $183,000 records show. It also ended the 2010 midterm election cycle with slightly more available cash. Patton Boggs has no comment on its PAC activity, said Kevin O'Neill, deputy chairman of the firm's public policy department.

The firm's dozens of recent clients include AT&T, Citigroup, Delta Airlines, Facebook, FedEx, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, National Association of Broadcasters, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Visa and Wal-Mart, according to filings with the U.S. Senate.

Meanwhile, the PACs of Van Scoyoc Associates, Williams and Jensen and Cassidy & Associates also each enter the 2014 election cycle with less cash on hand than they did at the same point two and four years ago, the analysis shows.

Holland & Knight, K&L Gates, Alston & Bird and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld enter the midterm election season off their cash-on-hand mark from either two or four years ago, but not both. Although K&L Gates' PAC is in slightly better financial shape now than at the end of the 2010 cycle, its current reserve of about $138,000 is down more than 23 percent from the more than $180,000 it boasted following the 2008 cycle.

A company that sells a popular Valentine's Day decoration — the helium balloon — is floating a pair of new advocates toward Capitol Hill.

North Carolina-based wholesaler Helium & Balloons Across America has hired the Alpine Group to lobby on its behalf, according to documents filed Wednesday with the U.S. Senate.

Greg Means, a former chief of staff for ex-Rep. Dennis Eckart, D-Ohio, and Mike Henry, a former staffer on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, will handle the account, the Senate filing shows.

The documents state that the lobbying duo will press the government on issues "affecting domestic helium supply and pricing."

A company employee confirmed the company is concerned about helium supply issues, and forwarded questions to owner Gary Page, who couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Indeed, companies that rely on the gas are enduring one of the most significant helium shortages in decades, causing prices to spike.

President Barack Obama's new nonprofit advocacy group, Organizing for Action, is using tonight's State of the Union address as a  fundraising opportunity. The group is emailing supporters asking them to register for a "special online call" following the speech before a joint session of Congress.

Upon registering your name, email address and ZIP code, you are immediately directed to an online form soliciting a donation to the organization, which describes its overarching mission as "achieving enactment of the national agenda Americans voted for on Election Day 2012."

The Democratic National Committee also blasted out an email this evening inviting supporters to watch the State of the Union address on its website.

Immediately after Executive Director Patrick Gaspard's signature? A large, red button with white letters reading "DONATE."

The GOP fundraising machine, meanwhile, is hardly idle.

Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Jeff Larson tonight emailed supporters with graphics depicting national economic conditions.

"Take a look at the real state of the union below and contribute today," he wrote, with the words "contribute today" linked to an online donation form.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Ky., chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would deliver a State of the Union rebuttal speech that would "articulate our message of opportunity, growth and security for every American."

Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig* and his campaign finance reform organization, Rootstrikers, are today calling on Federal Election Commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub to conduct a public hearing on super PAC regulation.

Rootstrikers says the request, and related petition, were prompted by a Center for Public Integrity article Saturday by Michael Beckel that quotes Weintraub as saying super PACs that support a single candidate may have more of a corrupting influence on the political process than super PACs that support multiple candidates.

"I would probably define corruption a little more broadly than the Supreme Court does,"  Weintraub said at a forum Friday at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

The high court considers spending by outside groups, independent of candidates, to be less of a corruption risk than unregulated direct contributions to candidates.

In his letter to Weintraub, a Democratic appointee, Lessig tells her that she "gave this country some much needed hope" with her comments, but added that "hope is not enough."

Lessig is also calling on the commission to consider issues such as whether super PACs may be run by a supported candidates' former staffers or family members and whether candidates may raise funds on behalf of a super PAC.

Hundreds of former Securities and Exchange Commission employees and officials are representing clients or employers before the agency, sometimes helping them score significant regulatory victories, according to a draft of a report scheduled for release today by the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

From 2001 through 2010, "more than 400 SEC alumni filed almost 2,000 disclosure forms saying they planned to represent an employer or client before the agency," the report states.

It continues: "Those disclosures are just the tip of the iceberg, because former SEC employees are required to file them only during the first two years after they leave the agency."

The report cites high-profile financial firms such as UBS, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Alaska Air Group Inc. as benefiting from the work of former SEC employees. Such ex-SEC officials have helped the companies they now represent win favorable regulatory rulings, the report asserts.

Former commission officials "routinely help corporations try to influence SEC rulemaking, counter the agency’s investigations of suspected wrongdoing, soften the blow of SEC enforcement actions, and win exemptions from federal law," POGO writes. "It matters because the SEC has the power to affect investors, financial markets and the economy."

Former SEC officials most frequently land at law, accounting and lobbying firms, as well as financial consulting outfits, according to federal disclosure reports POGO analyzed.

Topping the list are the ACA Compliance Group, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG.